Learning to Stand (52 page)

Alex clicked open the attachment to find a
picture of the head and bare shoulders of the Texas Ranger who
escorted Krystal to Texas. Tucked on his side, he was in bed and
smiling at the camera. His bare shoulder displayed his black script
‘F’ tattoo.

Alex smiled. Sometimes her little meddling
worked.

“
Lazy butt,” Alex said out
loud to herself. “Get to work.”

Clipping on her laptop’s webcam, Alex dialed
the map phone through her computer. She took out a pad of paper and
sharpened her yellow pencil.

“
Lieutenant Colonel
Alexandra Hargreaves Drayson. It is April 2, 03:42,” Alex said into
the recorder. “This is the first review of my Fey Special Forces
small team journal recovered approximately twelve hours
ago.”

She held up the journal to the video
recorder. Opening the small journal, she began to read the Navajo
based code. These little journals held her private thoughts, plans
and random details. This book started about seven months before the
team was killed.

Her entries were routine – who won at cards,
what Jesse was getting Maria for her birthday, thoughts about John
and plans with Max. Her fingers grazed the text. Her life on the
Fey Special Forces Team had been really good. Nestled within the
team, she was happy, safe and accomplished.

She pulled the large team journal from her
laptop case. She had all but memorized this journal. During the
assault, she carried this journal from friend to dead friend only
to hide it under a crate when she heard someone coming. Something
in this journal was valuable, important. She had no idea what.

The large journal began the day Joseph left
the team to spend six months with Nancy. After fifteen years of
infertility, Nancy was pregnant with twin girls. The small journal
held a page of potential names for the twins and everyone’s bets.
Of course, Joseph and Nancy took one look at their babies and named
them Joy and Hope.

Alex smiled. She couldn’t think of better
names for the even-tempered miracle girls.

Glancing at the big journal, Alex noticed
repeated words in the large journal and the small journal. About a
month after the Boy Scout joined the team, she started a running
conversation between the two journals. One word on one page.
Another word in the small journal then the next couple words in the
large journals.

No one would ever notice these words. No one
but Max. In school, Alex and Max used to communicate to each other
via the books they shared. The words were identified by small
details added to vowels. An ‘a’ had a flat tail and the space in an
‘e’ was darkened. ‘I’s had crosses for dots. The details were
subtle. You’d have to know what they meant to have any idea they
were code.

She flipped back and forth between the
journals. Slowly, a private narrative, written by Alex for Alex’s
eyes only, emerged.

She had been unsure of the Boy Scout from
the very beginning. Intelligence had only spotty details about him
and his life. Moreover, she couldn’t find anyone who’d ever worked
with him. She’d encouraged Charlie to trade him. And Charlie had
tried to trade him. More than once. He was never able to get rid of
him. She was left to try to determine what he was doing on their
team.

She monitored every thing the Boy Scout did
— every phone call, every conversation and every email. The
intelligence center set up an area to hold all of this data. After
everyone was killed, she asked for access to the area and was told
the account never existed. Whether the account existed or not, the
intelligence center would never tell her how to find it. She would
have insisted on at least that level of security.

Her small journal gave the exact location,
passwords, and codes to get into her data on the Boy Scout. After
downloading her database to her laptop, she logged out to continue
working her codes.

When she finished the small journal, she
began working backward through another pattern of words until she
found familiar words – ‘security token.’ Last year, Eleazar
believed her Zippo was a security token that would get him into...
What? The Zippo had a small computer chip connected to the spark
wheel. Neither Alex nor the team at military intelligence were able
to determine what the Zippo did. One thing was certain. It was not
a security token.

In the dim light, she noticed a wrinkle in
the back binding of the journal. She rubbed her fingers across the
inside back cover of the journal. That was no wrinkle. There was
something glued into the book.

Using her Leatherman Freestyle knife, she
gently pulled the paper from the cardboard. A 2G microSD memory
card and a brass key were taped to the cardboard of the small
journal. She turned memory card over. Hoping to find some marking
on it, she held it close to her eyes. Shrugging, she took a card
reader from her laptop bag. She hooked the reader to her computer
then slipped in the memory card.

The card held thirty-three photos of the Fey
Special Forces Team at various locations. Every photo revealed
laughing, joking teammates. Alex had to rip herself away from the
forgotten images of joy. Now was not the time. Taking out the
microSD memory card, she set it next to the Magic 8 ball.

The key was a standard brass key. Also about
two inches long, the key was stamped ‘Made in the U.S.A’ on one
side. The other side had a series of numbers stamped on it.
Clicking through the internet, she went to a Homeland Security site
which described keys. She was able to match the key to a filing
cabinet or compartment key. The key’s numbers indicated the lock’s
make and model not its location or even what the lock might be
associated with. Not sure what to do next, Alex tapped the key
against the table.

Picking up the key to set it aside, her
thumb felt a pattern on the “Made in the U.S.A.” side of the key.
Even next to her eyes, Alex saw nothing. But her thumb traced the
tiny fairy she stamped at the bottom of maps. She must have stamped
the key then wiped off the ink.

Setting the key next to the microSD memory
card, Alex turned the large journal over. Nothing there. There was
nothing under the paper and cardboard of the front either. The
weight of the large journal caused it to slip out of her hand and
land on the table with a clink.

A clink?

Alex noticed the binding was separated from
the leather surround. Flexing the book open, Alex looked down the
binding. Something was glued onto the leather next to the paper
binding. Turning the book over, she looked down the binding to find
another item glued to the leather. Using her knife, she dislodged
the object from the glue then flicked it out of the tight space. A
black plastic piece bounced on the table.

Alex picked up the inch and a half long
plastic piece. It looked like half of a keyless entry system.
Keyless entry systems are sometimes called ‘security tokens.’
Bingo.

From the other end of the binding, she
retrieved the matching inch and a half long plastic piece. The two
pieces fit together with a satisfying click. This was not a code
generator, nor an intelligence key. The logo and markings had been
burned off. She smelled the unit. The markings were burned off with
acid. That’s something she would have done.

She set the plastic box next to the memory
card and the key. Three’s the charm. To what?

Alex tapped her lip with her finger and
stared off into space. Without a computer chip and battery, this
security token won’t work. Plus she had no idea what any of these
pieces unlocked. She only knew Eleazar believed a security token
was the key to retrieving his property. ‘I want my property.’ He’d
said that over and over again. What property?

“
Check your lighter,” Jesse
said.

Alex picked up her broken Zippo lighter.
Clicking the lighter, she heard a mechanical whirring sound. The
sound went for a few seconds then stopped.

“
It’s the ball,” Jesse
said.

Turning over the Magic 8 ball, the white die
settled on ‘OF COURSE.’ She clicked the lighter and the die moved
to ‘NOT A CHANCE.’ Clicked the broken lighter again and the die
shifted to ‘DOES SHIT STINK?’ Alex laughed.

“
A joke? All this worry over
the lighter and it was a joke?”

“
Who knows what lurks in the
minds of the fairy godmother,” Jesse said.

“
This was for Helene?” Alex
laughed.

“
Who else did you play Magic
8 ball with?”

Laughing, Alex clicked through the rest of
the sayings. The lighter rotated the die to another saying every
time she clicked the spark wheel. She couldn’t tell if they were in
a set order or the die flipped at random. She was about to set it
down when she noticed Troy’s curvy brunette standing in against the
door frame.

“
I’ll take the security
token,” she said.

Stepping forward, the woman revealed a
silenced handgun.

FFFFFF

Wednesday morning

April 2 – 3:48 A.M. MDT

Denver, CO

Feeling Alex’s hands move along his naked
body, John shifted out of a deep sleep. He sighed. Her soft fingers
moved from his face to his shoulders. Her fingers explored his
nipples then dipped into his belly button. He entwined her hands
pulling them over her head and rolled on top of her. She glowed in
the moonlight. She lifted her head and he crushed his mouth with
hers.

His passion and longing welled inside of
him. His body burned to join with hers. As if she could read his
thoughts, she shifted her hips. Hovering over her, he heard her
laughter like the tinkling of bells. He kissed her lips.

“
We can’t,” he
whispered.

Her body drew him to her and they entwined.
He dove in, again and again, relishing each moist embrace. Kissing
her neck, he realized the glow was not cast by the moon. She was
emanating a blue glow.

This was not Alex.

He reeled back.

“
What do you want from me?”
he asked.

“
She’s in grave
danger.”

The blue fairy transformed from her Alex
shape to her magnificent blue countenance. With flowing robes and
long dark hair, she was a vision of everything good and beautiful
in the world. He had to shade his eyes from her blue light.

“
Wake up, John Kelly. Now is
the time to show what you can do, to be the man you
are.”

John awoke in bed.

He jumped from the bed then he scrambled for
his jeans. Pulling on a T-shirt, he went to his bag for a small
leather satchel. James had given him this satchel a couple nights
ago. He knew he would find John someday and John would want it
back. John shoved the satchel into his back pocket. Sliding down
the banister, he made a quick journey to the first floor.

F

Chapter forty-three

“
I thought you looked
familiar,” Alex said. “I couldn’t place you. How is your
father?”

“
Dead, thanks to you,” the
woman said. “They killed him when the token didn’t
work.”

“
When you broker death, at
some point you’re going to broker your own. Did you kill
Troy?”

“
He’s dying,” she said.
“Arrogant fool. He deserved a slow, painful death. You’re foolish
to keep imbeciles around you.”

“
Yes, well, loyal friends,”
Alex said. “Would you like some coffee?”

Still pointing the gun at Alex, the woman
moved farther into the room.

“
I’d like the security
token.”

“
How did you know it was
here?”

The woman nodded to the fake journals in the
corner.

“
The journals?
How?”

“
We suspected your little
journal held the information we needed. We tried to get it at the
imbecile’s father’s award ceremony. How did you know?”

Alex shrugged. The woman raised a single
eyebrow, and her handgun. Alex sighed.

“
Another loyal friend.
That’s how it works,” Alex said.

“
Our loyal friend put a
marker on your journal. We created these journals to notify us when
your journal is near. We knew the moment you brought your journal
into this room. We went to a lot of trouble to make sure you had a
copy of our… fabrications.”

“
You broke into Charlene’s
house so I would get your fakes? Can I have Charlie’s journals back
then?”

“
You won’t need them soon.”
The woman indicated her weapon.

“
Your loyal friend? You mean
Robert Powell.”

“
That’s correct.”

“
You’ve looked for this
information for a long time.” For the first time, Alex looked the
woman in the face. “Since before everyone died.”

“
You’ve held our property
captive for years. That’s correct.”

“
And what is your
property?”

The woman gave an exaggerated sigh.

“
You don’t know.”

“
I don’t like twenty
questions,” the woman said. “I’d kill you now but I need you to put
this thing together. No mistakes this time.”

“
Why don’t you have a seat?”
Alex asked. “I need to take apart the lighter. These are just
plastic.”

Alex popped the two plastic pieces
apart.

“
Move even an inch from your
seat and I will shoot you dead. I know about your tricks,” she
said.

Alex took a long a drink of her coffee.

“
I know almost nothing about
you. What should I call you?”

“
Get to work.”